Wednesday 25 September 2013

Bradford Council's latest nannying nonsense - the "salt pot amnesty"

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Not content with trying to - incorrectly - blame takeaways for obesity, Bradford Council has leaped into action over salt:

Takeaway owners in Bradford are being urged to help save lives by joining in a salt pot amnesty.

The district’s Good Food Team want to see as many as possible standard 17-hole salt pots exchanged for five-hole ones to reduce how much comes out. 

We know - we've known for ages - that the huge campaign against salt isn't merely pointless it borders on the dangerous:

With nearly everyone focused on the supposed benefits of salt restriction, little research was done to look at the potential dangers. But four years ago, Italian researchers began publishing the results from a series of clinical trials, all of which reported that, among patients with heart failure, reducing salt consumption increased the risk of death. 

Those trials have been followed by a slew of studies suggesting that reducing sodium to anything like what government policy refers to as a “safe upper limit” is likely to do more harm than good. These covered some 100,000 people in more than 30 countries and showed that salt consumption is remarkably stable among populations over time.

Yet useful idiot councillors like Bradford's ubiquitous Val Slater are rolled out to peddle the lie about salt consumption.  The truth - the facts if you like - is that there has been a remarkably stable level of salt intake in the UK during a period when heart attacks and heart disease incidence has fallen:

Deaths from heart attacks have halved since 2002 and no one is quite sure why. Similar changes have occurred in countries around the world but the death rate in England, especially, has fallen further and faster than almost anywhere.

Nothing to do with salt. Nothing at all. This jolly scheme isn't the worst bit of nannying nonsense but I'm absolutely sure it won't save a single life. Not one.

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3 comments:

Bucko said...

You have to ask for salt at our local McDonalds now. The chips taste pants without it.

Leg-iron said...

It won't save any lives and it'll kill a few, and nobody will ever accept the blame.

People are not clones. Some over-excrete salt through their kidneys, some are better at retaining it, most will be somewhere in between. Everyone has different requirements for all nutrients, including salt.

This 'British Standard Human' the government and BMA are so obsessed with does not exist.

Unknown said...

It was just a few months ago the NY Times ran a piece about there being no benefits to a salt reduction for most human beings. Seems like just another feel good need to be seen doing something move by those in power. Shame these people don't stop and look at rising rates of hypothyroidism since everyone has become obsessed with recommending a low sodium diet. Shame people who are on these councils don't have to take an oath to do no harm eh?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/health/panel-finds-no-benefit-in-sharply-restricting-sodium.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 I included the NY Times link.I hope that's allowed.